User Experience Specialist

Job Description

The University of Washington’s Office of Research has an outstanding opportunity for a bright, motivated UX Professional.  This position is a 1-year term appointment with opportunity to renew.

About this Opportunity

Reporting to the Technology Project Manager, the User Experience Specialist is responsible for contributing user-centered experience research and interaction design to the Office of Research’s software portfolio. This role is involved from formative research and ideation through interaction design, user testing, and system assessment. A broad base of human-centered design skills inform the User Experience Specialist’s deep understanding of user and business needs. This role helps to ensure system implementations are useful and usable, bringing simplicity and clarity to administration in the University‘s complex, world-leading research enterprise.

The User Experience Specialist serves as a voice of the user and an advocate for user-centered design, helping ensure that systems used throughout the research lifecycle support effective, efficient, and accessible administration of research projects.

Key Responsibilities

The User Experience Specialist is expected to contribute to elements of both design and research but may have an area of specialty in one or the other. Responsibilities for a given role may emphasize one specialty based on team need and candidate experience.

Product & Experience Design (60%)

• Conduct user experience research (e.g. user interviews, surveys, usability testing, focus groups) in an agile product development environment to support timely, user-responsive design.
• Write clear, comprehensible UX research reports describing activities conducted, analysis, findings, and design recommendations.
• Collaborate with analysts and senior designers to leverage quantitative data (e.g. web analytics, surveys, support trends) to inform design decisions and to help define, monitor, and refine UX success measures.
• Partner with product managers and business analysts to synthesize research, analytics, and stakeholder input into clearly scoped features and user stories that reflect user needs, policy requirements, and product strategy.
• Create design artifacts to support shared understanding and decision-making (e.g. user journeys, information architectures, user flow diagrams, storyboards).
• Build or modify low and mid-fidelity prototypes to communicate new interactions and test functionality with users.
• Refine prototypes at the appropriate fidelity to effectively communicate design intent to UX colleagues, management, and technical contributors.
• Participate in demos to business stakeholders, soliciting feedback without bias, facilitating helpful and on-topic discussion, and generating actionable findings.
• Participate in generative design critique sessions with other UX staff; actively solicit and incorporate feedback to improve design recommendations; and contribute well-informed, actionable critical feedback to others’ work.
• Collaborate effectively with technical contributors, facilitating working sessions to evaluate designs against feedback about feasibility and cost-effectiveness.
• Evaluate application systems against WCAG accessibility guidelines and inclusive design best practices and present actionable recommendations for remediation.

User Experience Specialist  Specialty Areas (20%)

UX Design Specialist

• Lead interaction and visual design for assigned products, translating complex workflows, policies, and data into detailed prototypes.
• Define and maintain information architectures, navigation structures, and content hierarchies that support efficient, learnable task completion across research lifecycle activities.
• Collaborate with the Senior User Experience Designer to expand and refine the ORIS design system — including layout, typography, color, and iconography — ensuring alignment with prior guidelines.
• Apply best practices for accessibility defined in existing design system to design specifications, ensuring all solutions developed are usable by people with a wide range of abilities.
• Conduct heuristic evaluations of existing interfaces to identify usability issues, inconsistencies, and opportunities for simplification, and translate findings into prioritized design improvements.

UX Research Specialist

• Lead primary user research activities, including drafting research questions, selecting appropriate methods, designing studies, recruiting and scheduling participants, and moderating sessions.
• Analyze qualitative and quantitative data—including but not limited to interviews, observations, surveys, and analytics—using appropriate qualitative-coding, synthesis, and statistical techniques to generate clear, rich insights.
• Maintain the ORIS UX Research repository, helping set best practice standards for plans, notes, recordings, and findings; promote broad use of insights across products and teams

Communications and Relationship Development/Management (15%)

• Design and facilitate collaborative workshops—such as discovery sessions, co-design activities, and prioritization exercises—to foster shared understanding of user needs and co-create solutions.
• Present design concepts, research findings, and recommendations to diverse audiences, tailoring communication style and level of detail to stakeholders ranging from end users to senior leaders.
• Partner with product, BA, and CX teams to create effective communications, demos, and training materials that help campus end-users understand and adopt new features and workflows.
• Serve as an advocate and advisor to business units and project teams, helping them articulate user problems and opportunities, and aligning proposed solutions with the broader ORIS product strategy and design vision.

Other Duties as Assigned (5%)

• Contribute to continuous improvement of UX and product development processes, tools, and practices within ORIS, including participating in communities of practice and cross-team initiatives.
• Perform other related responsibilities as needed to support the success of ORIS products, teams, and campus research stakeholders.
• Keep abreast of emerging trends in product, design, and technology; learn about and introduce suggestions for new ways of working (e.g. AI/agentic design, new methodologies, personal areas of product interest)

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Centered Design & Engineering, Informatics, Psychology, or related field; or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Minimum 3 years of progressively responsible experience in UX design and/or UX research for web or application products, including experience working on cross-functional agile teams.
• Experience facilitating user sessions, such as formative interviews, observation or contextual inquiry, card sorts, evaluative interviews, usability testing, co-design sessions.
• Demonstrated competence with survey design; ability to write unbiased questions and match response data to appropriate analytical methods.
• Broad working knowledge of user-centered design processes and tools; ability to select appropriate techniques based on product goals and constraints.
• Demonstrated ability to translate complex requirements, policies, and workflows into clear design artifacts (e.g., flows, wireframes, prototypes).
• Strong skill facilitating collaboration and communicating complex ideas clearly to technical and non-technical audiences through visual, verbal, and written means.
• Strong online portfolio or body of work demonstrating user-centered process, design or research craft, and impact on shipped products or services.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with one or more enterprise-scale system implementations or transitions.
• Experience with technology for research administration, higher education, sponsored public sector projects, budgeting and financial management, or similar complex domains.
• Ability to independently perform quantitative data analysis at the intermediate level to answer product and user research questions (e.g. Excel, PowerBI).
• Demonstrated skill in UX research planning, including choosing appropriate study and analysis methods, responding to product development constraints, and scoping research activities to most effectively meet pressing needs.
• Experience working with and presenting to strategic leadership.
• Comfort with prototyping and vibecoding tools (e.g. Figma, generative AI tools), with the ability to quickly generate useful proof-of-concept prototypes from sketches and ideation.
• Experience designing for mobile and multi-device experiences; familiarity with responsive and adaptive design patterns.
• Experience contributing to or maintaining design systems, UI component libraries, or pattern libraries.

Working Conditions

This position contributes in a collaborative teamwork environment. Collaboration among the software developers, website team members, business analysts, project managers, editors, quality assurance, support and others is done in a shared space working environment through ad hoc meetings focused on problem-solving, and the use of synchronous and asynchronous communication tools. Inflexible deadlines are common and non-standard working hours can be necessary. This position will primarily be expected to work standard working hours, aligned with Pacific Time zone where the office is based, and may require off-hours work for go-lives, incidents, and other deployments.

About the Team

The Office of Research Information Services leverages technology, data, information and collaboration to support research capabilities and further the research enterprise through national partnerships.

https://research.washington.edu/research/oris/

Compensation, Benefits and Position Details

Pay Range Minimum:

$96,000.00 annual

Pay Range Maximum:

$100,536.00 annual

Other Compensation:

-

Benefits:

For information about benefits for this position, visit https://www.washington.edu/jobs/benefits-for-temporary-per-diem-and-less-than-half-time/

Shift:

First Shift (United States of America)

Temporary or Regular?

This is a temporary position

FTE (Full-Time Equivalent):

100.00%

Union/Bargaining Unit:

Not Applicable

About the UW 

Working at the University of Washington provides a unique opportunity to change lives – on our campuses, in our state and around the world.  

UW employees bring their boundless energy, creative problem-solving skills and dedication to building stronger minds and a healthier world. In return, they enjoy outstanding benefits, opportunities for professional growth and the chance to work in an environment known for its diversity, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits and natural beauty. 

Our Commitment 

The University of Washington is committed to fostering an inclusive, respectful and welcoming community for all. As an equal opportunity employer, the University considers applicants for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, citizenship, sex, pregnancy, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, disability, or veteran status consistent with UW Executive Order No. 81.

To request disability accommodation in the application process, contact the Disability Services Office at 206-543-6450 or [email protected]. 

Applicants considered for this position will be required to disclose if they are the subject of any substantiated findings or current investigations related to sexual misconduct at their current employment and past employment. Disclosure is required under Washington state law.